The Munsters (2022)

Posted By: brian@brianschell.com October 3, 2022

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

It’s a prequel to the old television series, ending pretty much where the show starts. It’s kind of a strange movie with lots of pop culture references appealing to adults, especially older adults, but humor that seemed geared toward young people. It’s fun horror, not scary horror. The visuals are excellent, managing to be bright and colorful while being dark and gloomy at the same time. All in all, a thumbs up from The Horror Guys but it’s probably not going to be appreciated by all. We’d expect strong mixed reviews.

Synopsis

Men enter a Transylvanian crypt with shovels. As Dr. Wolfgang and his assistant Floop open the casket, they find it empty. The walking, talking zombie comes in behind them. The zombie was the world’s greatest pianist, and Dr. Wolfgang wants his hands. They knock him over the head and take selfies with the zombie. They’ve been collecting parts from lots of corpses.

Elsewhere, in the big castle, the Count wakes up and rises from his coffin. His back is out, and he needs Igor to fix it. “Once you hit three hundred everything starts to go.” His daughter Lily is out on a date with Mr. Orlock. Orlock’s a creepy old Nosferatu, but he’s wealthy, so that’s OK. They go the the Egyptian restaurant, and the service is really slow– the waiter is a mummy. Orlock has pictures of his rats, and he’s pretty boring at first, but he’s really a disco party animal.

Zoya the gypsy gets Lester the werewolf to call the Count; she wants to buy his castle and build a casino there. The Count is watching old movies on TV, but the show is interrupted with the news that Shecky Von Rathbone, a bad comedian, has just died; so has the smartest man in the world. Dr. Wolfgang wants the dead genius’s brain, and they get Shecky instead because Floop is Floop.

As Lily sits at home being lonely, Dr. Wolfgang assembles the body parts into a regular Frankenstein’s monster. Floop decides to name the creation Herman Munster, like the cheese. The switch is thrown, the sparks fly, and it’s all excessively dramatic. Is it alive? No. Wolfgang breaks down and has a tantrum. Oh, wait, that creature is alive!

The Count and Lily watch the morning show, and Dr. Wolfgang is on there unveiling his creation. Herman walks out into the spotlight, and Lily is immediately smitten. He tells a bad joke, but he can’t play the piano at all and he doesn’t seem too bright. Shecky’s brian has taken over.

Herman soon goes on the comedy club circuit, which makes him easy for Lily to find. In the office above the nightclub, Zoya gives Lester an ultimatum; he has two weeks to get her the castle. Lester runs into Lily on the steps; they’re siblings. Herman’s into Lily too, so that works out well. She invites him over for dinner at midnight tomorrow.

Herman arrives, and The Count is not impressed. He and Igor decide to get rid of Herman, but Lily is all in on Herman. They get tattoos of each other and sing karaoke. Before long, they’re engaged. The Count pulls out a spell book and chooses a “husband spell.” He ends up conjuring up a dancing ape instead.

At the wedding in the cemetery, Lester tells Herman about the real estate deal, but Herman doesn’t care about the finances. He signs Lester’s contract without even asking about it. Much to the Count’s dismay, the marriage proceeds.

The pair go to Paris for their honeymoon, and there are mime and Frenchman jokes to spare. They read about a monster haunting the sewers of Paris, so they have to go visit. They catch a little dragon and name him Spot.

Back in Transylvania, Zoya sends the Count an eviction notice. Zoya is the Count’s ex-wife, and she wants revenge. He goes to Paris to kill Herman in retaliation. The Count rages about the contract and eviction to Lily and blames it all on Herman. Herman thinks he can make a killing in California; they need a fresh start. Time to leave Transylvania!

Herman says the Count can come along, but he’ll have to leave Igor behind. The Count mixes up a potion for Igor that turns him into a bat. They call a realtor to get a new house. She likes their “Halloween costumes” and takes them to the house for sale. They drive through Mockingbird Heights, a too-clean suburban neighborhood that’s fully decorated with everyone in costume. It’s Halloween, and Lily has no idea all the “beautiful” kids are just wearing masks. They fall in love with the condemned mansion down the street, and the realtor’s grateful to be rid of the eyesore.

They have the house of their dreams, but they’re flat broke. Herman decides to go out and get a job. The trio go outside and introduce themselves to the neighbors at the Halloween party, and of course, everyone is in costume. They fit right in and think the whole thing is terrific. The Munster family wins the prize for “best costume.” The men who run the local mortuary hire Herman on the spot to carry their larger clients.

The next morning, they are horrified to discover normal suburban life now that Halloween is over. It hits Herman that all the people his neighbors are actual, normal humans; how terrifying. “We can’t live with people who look like that!” Lily exclaims. But they decide it’s what’s inside a person that counts. Lester comes to the door and hands them a bunch of money; he made a killing in Vegas with his share of the castle proceeds. Happy ending!

Commentary

It’s the origin story we didn’t know we needed. The visuals are great, with silly animated backdrops when appropriate. The jokes are horrible “dad jokes” for the most part, which is exactly what you’d expect from Herman. There are lots of pop references, but they’re mostly referencing stuff from the sixties, so I don’t know how many young people are even going to understand those. There was even a “Car 54” reference. Still, I don’t think this was aimed at young viewers. Except the humor is really, really juvenile, as if it were aimed at kids. I think the film has confused itself.

Grandpa Munster is just “The Count” here, since he’s not a grandpa yet, and technically he’s not a “Munster” anyway. Most of the actors also have a dual role as someone who appears on their TV shows.

Before release, there were all the usual comments about Rob Zombie casting his wife in all his films, but Lily was probably the best thing about this film. Daniel Roebuck as the Count was also pretty good. The weak point here, unfortunately, was Herman. For a character as iconic as Herman, he just didn’t pull it off. (Horror Guy Kevin disagrees and thinks he did a pretty good job of building the character from zero – being reanimated – to the point where they are settled in to start a family.)

I watched all the original shows as a kid (in the 70s), and they were a lot of fun. This is pretty much exactly the same thing. It’s not updated or rebooted, not really; it’s exactly the same thing. They’re all set up for possible sequels, so it’s more of a reminder that these characters exist than anything else.

I liked it a lot, but it’s probably not going to appeal to everyone.